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Old 11-08-11, 05:50 PM   #1
joedog
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Default Should I lead or not?

On an earlier post of mine, something to do with top water fishing, and I mentioned that I sometimes use a tieable wire leader to avoid pike bite offs. I was told to try floro leader.

This concept no matter how often I analyze it, still is hard for me to understand.
First, won't a hooked pike and the thrashing they like to throw, even once in the boat, can't it and wouldn't it be able to bite the floro and cut the line. Are we talking about real heavy floro 30lb. plus or what? Plus floro sinks, so wouldn't it be counter productive for top water?
Then I heard, use a mono leader. Other than not sinking whats the difference. Mono as a rule is less abrasion resistance so would cut easier, right? The fear of bite offs is why I can't rationalize buying Riccos and other ultra poppers (ultra expensive).
So will someone explain the concept to me?
The leader is being tied to braid. And now while I think about it. People frequently complain or at least comment on the difficulty of hook ups using hollow frogs. Dosn't using braid have more of a tendency to pull a bait out of the fishes mouth. Simiilar to cranking and the use of fiberclass and glass rods so there is more forgiveness and less chance of pulling bait out of the fishes mouth. Yet, I rarely hear of people using the same logic for frogging. True most use fast action poles and that may soften the original pull at set but thats pretty limited.
Anyway thats todays dilemma.
Thank you for your help and good fishing to all.
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Old 11-08-11, 06:05 PM   #2
carolina-rig-01
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Well this is just me thinking out loud so take it for what it's worth. But first of all I can't say whether or not flourocarbon will cure your problems with pike bite offs, I will guarantee you that it will kill the action of your topwater baits. You might try putting some type of wax like lip balm or something on a flourocarbon leader and see if it will float your line, not sure if it will work or not but I have done it on lighter lines and it's worked ok. As for why braid is the prefered line for frogs. Getting the hooks drove through the mouth of the fish is the problem with frogs, not ripping the hooks out. I think the fact that the frog body collapses makes it really hard to generate any movement of the bait to drive the hooks home once the fish clamps down on the bait. This is where braid comes in. Also braid is a good frog line because of the places you fish a frog which a lot of the times include grass, pads, brush, and all sorts of stuff that braid will cut through when you set the hook.
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Old 11-08-11, 06:47 PM   #3
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You could also use titanium leaders. Many of the pre-rigged steel leaders I've seen are long and heavy wire, more than what you probably need. I've used some 4" wire leaders for saltwater that were pretty fine wire, but they did kink pretty easily. Cabela's has something similiar. http://www.cabelas.com/product/Invis...h-All+Products
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Old 11-08-11, 06:55 PM   #4
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What I've heard from some old timers is using 50 pound mono as a leader with the understanding that yes, a large pike could cut through it, but it would not be easy. In other words, it could fail, but it is not likely to fail. Of course should you land a pike on a 50 pound mono leader, you would want to closely check for any damage to the leader. Fifty pound mono is pretty tough stuff. Now how that would affect your topwater would depend on the topwater. A small topwater would perhaps be hampered a bit, but a large Spook would probably be fine. But at least the mono leader would float. As for the braided line with frogs, Kory answered it pretty well. Braid offeres high break strength in small diameter with near zero stretch. Combined with the right tackle, it will drive that hook home despite the colapsing hollow frog body. And once you have the bass hooked, you'll have the line strength to haul that bass out of the heavy cover, and the strong but narrow diameter will cut through the lilly pad stems and other vegitation rather that get wraped around and stuck.
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Old 11-08-11, 07:07 PM   #5
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joedog don’t be to quick on turning down the braid. I have been catching Pickerel…..i know Baby Pike right! But the braid held up. You may be able to get by with a short leader of fluorocarbon a foot and not have it mess with your top water action. I was throwing a fluke in Florida working it on the top with 2ft leader of Seaguar red label fluorocarbon and it works. I could walk the dog pretty easy with the fluke. I was using an unweighted 6/0 hook though. Also don’t sleep on your drag……are you using carbontex drag washers. You can get way better performance with them. I crank with nothing but 6 and 10 pound braid with graphite rods.
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Old 11-08-11, 07:35 PM   #6
lilmule
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Straight braid works quite well on toothie critters-20 pd power pro got these,the latter is my friend Steve Huber.What doesnt work well is lipping the things.


Ps mine is shorter as its a short nosed gar darn near a state record,and a frog fish at that.
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Old 11-08-11, 07:47 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lilmule View Post
Straight braid works quite well on toothie critters-20 pd power pro got these...
I have lost plenty of lures (topwater or underwater) to pike while using 30lb braid on the lake I fish. It's just hit or miss whether they saw me off or not. There are also plenty of the pesky pike that do make it into the boat but have started to shred my line just above the knot, so I need to re-tie.

Quote:
Originally Posted by joedog View Post
...
The fear of bite offs is why I can't rationalize buying Riccos and other ultra poppers (ultra expensive).
...
Same here. I use only steel leaders if I want to make sure I don't get snipped, but it's very rare that I do that. I think they wreck the action of the lures I'd want to use them on. About the only time I use them is if I'm targeting pike with big spoon of some sort, but I usually only do that when pike season is open and bass season isn't.
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Old 11-08-11, 08:06 PM   #8
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For what it's worth a lot of flyfishermen use heavy floro leaders for pike. You have to buy the leader material though, it's much harder than regular floro and more abrasion resistant.
I think I would try the tieable wire leader and just use the lightest stuff you can get away with. Another flyfishing trick you may try is similar to what C-rig said and use a candle to rub on the leader to make it more bouyant. You could try bowhunting string wax also as it should do the same thing.
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Old 11-08-11, 11:35 PM   #9
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When I fished in S GA & N Fla "Pics" were everywhere, certainly not a true Pike but razor sharp teeth. I really only remember them cutting line while we were worming, stuff like spinnerbaits and plugs not so much. I guess big pike with their proportionately bigger mouths could cut off anything you throw. My instinct says to just skip the leader and fish straight braid. Or maybe if catching lots of big pike is inevitable, perhaps you should do as the Romans do....... I remember one lake in particular that was so packed with those big pickeral we would hit an area where we wanted to bass fish but first we'd tie on some spinnerbaits and catch as many of um as we could for an hour then go back over it bassin.
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